India's Proposal For Government Control of Internet To Be Discussed In Geneva 230
First time accepted submitter cvenky writes "The Indian Government is proposing to create an intergovernmental body 'to develop internet policies, oversee all internet standards bodies and policy organizations, negotiate internet-related treaties and sit in judgment when internet-related disputes come up.' This committee will be funded and staffed by the UN and will report to the UN General Assembly which effectively means the control of the internet passes on to World Governments directly."
Oh Boy... (Score:3)
That should work out well for a free and open internet, eh?
Strat
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Informative)
I could get behind this if it weren't the entire General Assembly, but instead just a selection of governments with some kind of free speech and representative democracy. Letting countries like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran even have a vote seems ludicrous.
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
And letting in the US is better ?
SOPA
PIPA
ACTA
Trans Pacific Trade Agreement ?
Give me a break. There is no government, no government on earth that wants a true free internet.
So in my view its better these governments "fight" each other and leave the internet alone (mostly) than have them banded together and destroy it with certainty.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
And letting in the US is better ?
Well, the US controls it now, so...
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
Correction: They control some aspects of it, i.e. creation of TLDs and some of the most common TLDs. IANA, IETF, IESG etc. are international bodies already.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
And letting in the US is better ?
Well I think it's , at least for westerners, a case of the devil ( USA) you know.
USA is a very easy devil to deal with just throw money at it and it will let you do what ever you like.
Cause it's gets a bit nasty if you don't have money but at least it's an honest devil.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:4, Informative)
SOPA
Failed to pass.
PIPA
Failed to pass.
ACTA
Failed to pass (as of yet), seems unlikely.
Trans Pacific Trade Agreement
If you're talking about this [wikipedia.org], well, it's still up in the air. My cursory read of the articles tells me that it would mainly be about eliminating tariffs between South Asia countries. The cynic in me says that it's all about setting up cheap and exploitable labor in those countries to reduce costs.
And okay, that's where we failed. Shit like NAFTA has, ironically, put the people it was supposed to help out of business (such as Mexican corn farmers, a lot of whom now grow something else entirely). But our government has always been pretty shitty about stuff like this, but what are you gonna do? It won't affect an everyday American's ordinary life like SOPA, PIPA, or ACTA would, so you won't really see any action against it build up any sort of momentum, unfortunately.
tl;dr: America writes up shitty laws just like nearly every other country in history, but on the ones mentioned we're 3 for 4 in keeping those shitty laws from passing.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Letting the US is better?
Compared to N. Korea, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia?
Um, YES, IT IS FUCKING BETTER!
The US isn't perfect, no one is saying that. No one is saying the US is the best. Compared to THOSE countries? Compared to the amount of freedom that can be found on MOST of the planet? Yes, the fucking US is better than that.
Jesus fucking christ and this drivel was modded INSIGHTFUL? You want some real problems with limitations and outright lack of free speech, travel *outside* the US for once in your miserable, small and meaningless little fucking life.
You've got most of Europe, the northern part of North America, Australia, and Japan & S. Korea. The rest of the world is pretty much fucking *shit*, and your rights mean *nothing*.
But hey, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure the US is every bit as much of an authoritarian shithole with no respect for human rights as China and North Korea. Totally.
Fucking idiot.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Compared to N. Korea, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia?
You had me up until that last one. Saudi Arabia is a staunch US ally.
The US sells them vast amounts of US military hardware every year and if the US government had any sort of problem with the utter lack of any democracy there it could bankrupt them very quickly by not buying their oil. Of course that will never happen though as the US would rather Saudi stayed as friendly monarchy with a shit human rights record as most of the general populace are muslim and would probably elect a bunch extremist anti-american nutters if given half the chance.
Also, when considering the wonderful US stance on human rights you might consider that that only applies to US citizens. The folks who have been held in Guantanamo bay might not have such a great opinion on the US and it's marvellous human rights record. Another group of people not exactly happy would be the families of children killed by Israel when they fired US made and paid for incendiary missiles at Gaza.
That is not to say that other countries you quote are better, far from it. My point is only that often these things look very different depending on which people are fucking you over. The US has often been party to installing utterly non-democratic oppressive regimes in countries in recent history just to benefit US companies economically.
This is maybe a reason to consider tempering a single countries control with some sort of body where no one country had absolute control. You might even use the model the US uses for it's own internal governance (constitutional democracy or whatever) where countries got a proportional vote depending on online presence. Big changes that went against certain core principles could even then be blocked by a certain percentage voting against. It make not make for a freer internet but at least might bog the governing body down in so much bureaucracy that it didn't get any less free at least.
This might make it a little harder for RIAA and whoever to boot sites off the net for enabling piracy or whatever.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Hmm...so, what country are you in? Would you be willing to accept the package if we dropped off all these terrorist guys into your country? Would that solve things for you?
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Find somewhere in Asia that isn't Japan and S. Korea that even pretends to know what rights are.
Somewhere has to be the bottom of the heap of "free" nations, anyway. I should have added Israel to that list, in retrospect -- but Japan and S. Korea still have all the rest of Asia beat, and Africa is just a fucking joke of a continent.
10 years ago I might've included Russia on that list, but... I hesitate, today.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Informative)
South Korea? You mean the former military dictatorship that dabbles in democracy but is practically run by industry giants?
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
Lazy analysis. Even if no government wants a truly free Internet, there are still differences between all the other governments. And quite frankly, the US is on a very short list of countries I'd like to see have control over the Internet.
The UN controlling the Internet will be a lowest common denominator kinda issue, and that will be to regulate pretty much everything. Do not want. And that's coming from someone who supports the UN far more than the average american.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
The reasons international governance would be better is the same reason continuous coalition/minority governments give healthier democracies - the only legislation that can be passed is that which is common sense and not controversal. Legislation that is highly controversal like censorship ends up tied up in battles that last for eternity and so never reach agreement for implementation.
It's not use arguing that we should just trust the US because the rest of the world wants to censor the net - the US and even private US corporations are already censoring the net. The US government with it's ICE seizures of legitimate foreign businesses such as Carribean based gambling sites which are completely legal internationally, and only the US takes offence to them, and privately because there have been a number of cases in the US where judges have ruled that sites the target of commercial litigants should indeed have their domains seized.
We already have censorship thanks to the US, and with the onslaught of first the DMCA, then SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and so on and so forth it's only getting worse under US internet dicatorship. I would've agreed with the let the US keep running the show principle in the 90s when common carrier was an established principle, and it otherwise left it the hell alone, but now? There's no way the US can be trusted indefinitely with it anymore, something has to change.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
There is one difference between US and Indian attempts to censor the internet. The USG is clearly in the pockets of big media and industry, targetting sites which distribute "pirated" materials and "fake" products.
India, on the other hand wants Pre-screening of Internet content [wikipedia.org]:
In other words, the US "censors" activities and sites that it considers to be illegal.
India wants to censor all speech that some in their nation find "offensive."
Worse, India doesn't seem to have any sane way of describing what "offensive" speech is, leaving the entire community of barn doors open for abuse, not just their own.
Not that I'm at all impressed with US corporate/media run censorship, either. But at least the USG seems to have some rules about what they censor.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is about equal to all those you list in terms of civil rights, meaningful free speech (not just the playstuff that's actually allowed), levels of corruption and levels of actual democracy.
I agree that none of those listed should have a voice, but by the same standard neither should the US. At present, the US has very near absolute power. The GA may have depraved and corrupt elements, but on aggregate it's no worse than the US on any metric and at times is a whole lot better.
Ideally, the Internet would be run by a meritocratic UN group, with all nations recognizing and respecting a group that chooses members by merit and acts on merit. There have been *cough* enough incidents where nations (US included) have actively sought to cripple meritocratic groups that I do not believe such a group could function. It would lack the teeth necessary to impose its decisions and to work it would need Predator X-like teeth.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
The US is about equal to North Korea in free speech? Hyperbole, much?
By all means, go live in one of those places and the the US and tell me they are anywhere near equal. I'll wait.
The US created the Internet, with all of the assorted freedoms it has right now. I can't think of any other place it could have been created, including most of Western Europe. You may feel butthurt about American hegemony and some of the bad decisions made under that umbrella, but you need a little perspective.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
But its destination is the same. "Better" doesn't mean "good."
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yet it's still walking slower in that direction than anyone else.
I beg to disagree. I am Brazilian and although my country has a LOT of problems it is certainly not going in this direction faster than US. The same can be said about a lot of developing countries and even most of the European countries, with some exceptions (UK comes to my mind). US certainly has a lot of laws protecting free speech and such, but laws are useless if the price of justice is not affordable and its decisions are each day less technical and more political. Add that to the fact that even these failing laws are being eroded each day by absurd amendments and acts and you have a very bleak picture.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
Then someone would set up an abstracted darknet on top purely for the porn.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Inventing something does not grant a right to control it later - otherwise, you would not need the FCC to allocate radio spectrum but leave that to Italy; and if Ford wanted to make changes to a car model they should ask Germany. And so on.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
The US is about equal to all those you list in terms of civil rights, meaningful free speech (not just the playstuff that's actually allowed)
You know how I know you're a barking idiot?
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ideally, the Internet would be run by a meritocratic UN group, ...
No. Ideally it wouldn't be 'run' at all.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
One IP or AS number is just like another, so all you need is a simple administrative body to make sure two people don't try to use the same one.
Yeah, true with current or foreseeable future protocols. Not necessarily impossible to avoid, though - what if networks were addressed by public keys in a large sparse space, and you could just randomly generate them when needed?
That's a source of endless disputes, and so long as those domains remain a source of substantial income that will be the case. So a body is needed to resolve them.
You're presuming I recognize the legitimacy of intellectual property there, I think. I do not, and see no reason to object to "whoever claims it first owns it".
On the other hand, DNS is probably the most administratively problematic protocol around due to the need for someone to run the root zone. That one would sure be nice to find a workaround for....
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
- If the terms are meaningful, then they will have value. Companies of similar name will dispute who gets one. There will be issues relating to names used for satire or protest. Some will be worth millions, which means lots of legal action. This is the situation with DNS. It works, it also leads to the plague of the cyber-squatters and the type of hugely expensive legal action that only lawyers benefit from.
- If the terms are not meaningful, then there will be great impracticality. Apple wants to be found at 'apple.com' not '819329e4916977570ed5e9617f3049b41c1ec8fa87459a1eb8690bd7a80aa3d2'. How can you put that on a TV advert, or a radio ad? You could put it on a poster, but only in the form of a QR code.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Yeah, true with current or foreseeable future protocols.
Protocols too, need to be agreed on.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
To measure political speech, I would use a list like this [rsf.org], which is much less subjective than your opinion. It looks to me like the dividing line is somewhere in the middle of that list, but that is obviously IMHO. The bottom of that list is straight out.
To measure democracy, I'd try something like this (sorry about the PDF). [economist.com] They have a category called "Authoritarian regimes", and I think those countries should definitely be excluded.
I'm not trying to rig the game in favor of the US, I'm trying to rig the game in favor of human rights.
What "meritocratic" groups are you talking about? (Score:2)
I can't think of any "meritocratic" groups in existence that don't have the US and sometimes Russia or Canada with a veto over the decisions of the body, ala the UN. We don't know if a meritocratic group could or would function, because we've never had one. The US and others have always insisted on having a "final say" through a veto, as if their form of "democracy" is inherently better than others despite the wide spread and blatant corruption caused by lobbying and well-heeled lobbyists.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
We're talking about the same United Nations that has Libya [slashdot.org] on its Human Rights Council. What do you think is going to happen?
How are we supposed to take your post seriously on a geek discussion site if you cant even post a link properly?
The link you wanted to post was here:
Libya [ohchr.org]
And btw, why should they not be on the council again in 2013? They are no longer a dictatorship and are making great strives towards democracy now that Gadafi is gone.
You did realise that was what it said on the link you posted didn't you? Here is the story stating they will be re-admitted:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40438&Cr=libya&Cr1 [un.org]
They were kicked off the council for clamping down on their own citizens at the start of the arab spring.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Representative democracy? At the UN? Since when does a king or dictator represent the will of the people? I'm the one proposing democracy.
Look at it this way (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has done far, far worse than expected, ICANN has shown that they really can't and the FCC has utterly destroyed any possibility of it doing anything by treating the Internet as not a communication system. The major ISPs are acting like gangsters, using extortion and running protection rackets via the death of network neutrality.
Leaving it where it is WILL kill the Internet as we know it. You WILL lose what freedoms you still have, if power doesn't shift soon.
I don't know if the UN will do any better, but they sure as hell can't do worse and there are no other international organizations capable of the task.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:3)
I'm not seeing how some sort of UN group, particularly a GA based one, is going to favorably address any of the points you brought up at all.
And hell yes, the UN can do worse, I mean, there's only one country that *has* controlled the Internet including the time that you think the Internet was any good. So your plan is to say, anyone *must* better than the people who ran it when it did have freedom? I really just don't think you can make a statement like that with any credibility.
If you want to suggest a UN body might be better, by all means, list actual reasons. I'm guessing that when you do, you might actually notice that almost none of them would necessarily get any better under a body that is filled with member countries that are quite happy to set up nationwide filters, including some Western ones. It is certainly not going to stop ISPs from acting like gangsters if you give a vote in the Internet to countries run by actual gangsters and dictators.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, no, the US didn't control the Internet when it was any good, the NSF did. (No, the DARPA days weren't better, DARPA's screwball decisions are why the Internet protocols are as messed up as they are.) The NSF isn't run by Congress or Corporations. One option would be for the NSF to claim eminent domain, seize all fibre (lit and dark) in the US or owned by US organizations, and run the lot on rational principles.
However, that would only cover the US. The Internet is very global. Even CERN is primarily European. We need a UN body for the global reach, but it would need to meet the following criteria to actually work:
* It needs to be quasi-independent
* Members should be elected purely on merit, not on grounds of money or territory covered
* Officials should be 75% from the academic community and 25% from the InfoSec community, NOTHING from the political or corporate communities
* The organization should be primarily concerned with research, collaborative projects and the information demands of science
* The Internet should be a means to achieve the desired end results, not an end in itself
* Since this limits direct law-enforcement options, it would need to have significant muscle (eg: veto powers in the IMF and WTO) to ensure nations complied
However, let's assume the GA wants to take over and not create a meaningful NSF-like body. Actual gangsters and dictators hold onto power because they know what they can take and when not to push too hard. The KKK was well-known for charity work, not because they gave a crap but because it's by far the easiest way to manipulate the hearts and minds of those peons and fools they needed to be compliant. Corporations hold onto power through smoke, mirrors and legislation. They take it all and don't give a crap about pushing too hard because customers are expendable. I have zero faith in the mob, but that's still far more faith than I'll ever have in a megacorp.
I'd also point to Japan where actual mobsters and criminal gangs ARE in charge of many areas of law enforcement -- the nation has better Internet than the US (eg: gigabit to the home), better medical care, lower levels of (unlicensed) crime, lower levels of overt violence and far better sushi. It's an actual real-life embodiment of Terry Pratchett's Thieves' Guild. (I would not be surprised if Terry Pratchett got the idea from them, since many of his books are sourced in real-world ideas.)
That's far from ideal, and I repeat I have zero faith in it, but my faith in the current system is so far in the negative that zero is a definite improvement.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
There needs to be global body but it definitely shouldn't be a UN one. The UN is a bunch of corrupt politicians and third world dictators. I wouldn't trust the UN with anything. The Internet needs to be a separate political entity, independent of nationstates. The UN will never agree to your points, the only reason some of its members are pushing for global control is so they can censor sites outside of their borders. America has many problems, but at least it has strong free speech protections, which is essential for a working net.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
The first rule of politics is that there is always worse. If the Indians ruled the net, any site could be turned off for insulting a cow.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
...the FCC has utterly destroyed any possibility of it doing anything by treating the Internet as not a communication system.
Please explain what you mean by that?
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
Central control is bad, and world government is a terrible idea since it must seek to please the lowest common denominator.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:4, Informative)
The ITU came up with a hell of a lot more than those. X.25 was the wire protocol used by Europe for a very long time - worked extremely well and was highly robust, compared to its US contemporary which was IPv0.
X.400 was probably heavier than necessary, but 99% of all work to improve on the limitations of SMTP have basically been reinventions of features X.400 had from the start.
X.500 exists today in the form of LDAP + ASN.1 + Digital Certificates + Federated methods of authentication. All these combined still don't cover the full spectrum of X.500 capabilities, but most of what's left wasn't really needed. However, there's nothing done today that wasn't in the standard. Not bad going.
Their other work includes little-known standards like JPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.323 and ISDN, along with developing and standardizing technology that you can't possibly have heard of like wavelength-division multiplexing for optic fibre and DSL (yes, it's an ITU product as well).
Yes, they did the OSI model (which is still the basis for most networking) and SDL, but nobody's perfect.
Re:Look at it this way (Score:3)
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
Ok, agreed TCP/IP uses four and agreed that those four don't entirely agree with the OSI model (you have to talk of fractions of a level to line things up, bleagh!).
Applications increasingly add more on top, and yes technically you are correct that from a purist network perspective they aren't important. However, there's generally 2-3 of them and that matches the OSI prediction on how many application-level layers are needed, so I'm going to say that the OSI model got the ratio of total level of functionality needed to total complexity affordable just about right even if experience tells us that the extra layers needed aren't really network at all. If you therefore re-state OSI as a 4+3 layer model (network+application-level), rather than as a 7 layer model (all network) it's an impressive fit for something that is absolutely ancient in computing terms.
So, yes, in the technical sense you are absolutely correct. It is the basis for teaching about networks, rather than the reality of networks. No question about it. It is in the totality of modern applications and how they work -in the most abstract sense- that you find that a 4+3 design nicely balances flexibility with overhead.
(On this basis, I would argue that those teaching OSI should not go on to say that it's not used in practice, but should actually say that the OSI model correctly describes network activities but incorrectly lumps all the complexity and functionality together into a single box, where it's the box that doesn't exist in practice.)
Re:Look at it this way (Score:2)
Having worked with X.25, it's nothing to be proud of. Takes too much configuration to get a connection established. Hundreds of parameters, many of those are very esoteric.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Let's be fair, they might be slightly better -- there's less food to be stolen and local girls to rape inside my computer, so by that fact alone it'd have to be a better job.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
That should work out well for a free and open internet, eh?
Strat
Hypothetical example: our worst dreams come true, and everything goes to shit on the Internets. Now everything in monitored and watched.
Solution: do what geeks have always done, and create the Darknet version of BitTorrent. That is, a darknet that is easy to use, cryptographically strong, and damn near impossible to detect.
Even if, well, any government clamps down and does their best effort, it won't matter for much terribly. Look at Iran, China, et. al. and how easily their censorship schemes are bypassed by their people.
Lastly (in the United States at least), we have no problem telling other countries to fuck off when it comes to doing things we're not all that interested in following through with. As an example, there's been multiple proposals in the U.N. for personal restrictions on Firearms (i.e. citizens can't have guns), which basically has about as much of a chance in passing in America as a bisexual, atheist, and Arab President has being elected in 2012.
The U.N. has proved ineffectual time and time again, so there's not really a whole lot to worry about here. Backwards countries like India will do their best to keep their citizens in the dark and fail on every level. The population will get more connected in every way and we'll see less and less bullshit as time goes on. Keep in mind things like how you can easily look up the voting record of any American politican from the comfort of your home and how we didn't have that capability 10 years ago. It's one of many small (but significant) ways in which the people have been empowered by technology, and I only expect them to grow and I also expect politicians' efforts to suppress them to fail due to, ironically, their lack of understanding of technology and the difficulty of the problem.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Sounds like Freenet. I've used it. It does work, but the anti-tracking measures impose a nasty performance overhead, so it's painfully slow and there are no real-time communications abilities. I've read that TOR and
The idea reminds me of Treehouse from the Otherland novels. Unfortunatly fictional, but a similar origin story to what is happening now: The internet becomes increasingly regulated in the future. Most people are happy with this - it means no more dodgy scammers, and no more pranksters joining forums just to flood it with pornography and leave. Those people who disagree with the new regulation made Freenet, a darknet overlay with obvious simularities to the darknets of the real world, where anything was permitted.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
That's orthogonal to the body that controls the standards. After all, the fact that repressive regimes have a say in the ITU does not mean that they can arbitrarily tap your phone if you don't live in their country, now does it?
Mart
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually scratch that. The Indian government is not authoritarian. It's just...stupid and uninformed and clueless. Ditto for most of the population.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:2)
Speaking as an Indian, I can safely say that we as a country don't deserve to have ANY control over the Internet......
However if you think about it the Indian government, going by past experience with the commonwealth games, could runs things so badly it just might be a positive. Internet chaos might be good.
Re:Oh Boy... (Score:3)
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:3)
There are a lot of Indians in very high places in many global technology companies. No matter what passport they are carrying, all of them are VERY VERY LOYAL to their homeland, India.
And do what?
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:2)
Spoken as if the US citizens spread widely across the world are not loyal to the US and its interests. In fact, insert any country you like, it's a vacuous accusation that can be levelled against the "other" anywhere.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:3, Funny)
There are a lot of Indians in very high places in many global technology companies. No matter what passport they are carrying, all of them are VERY VERY LOYAL to their homeland, India.
The influential Indian diaspora might just be the key for India to push its _Gag-the-Net_ agenda across the proposed global meeting in Geneva.
Solution: we employ guard cows in every server room. The Indians won't dare upset their sacred beasts. Problem solved!
Moreover, we hire people Dalits [wikipedia.org] (Indian untouchable caste) as security. Now they can't even get into the building!
Hey, ain't nothin' wrong with using a country's ignorance against itself.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:3)
Simple : he assumes that indian ideology is pro-blocking the internet (which it on average clearly is, no matter the local situation), and then attempts to show that his own ideology is more advanced than this mythical average indian ideology. Which is partially true, if a gross generalization.
He is wrong in the way you say. But you also paint the situation much nicer than it really is : India is in an long-winded war with Pakistan (heh non-muslim vs muslim ... I wonder who attacked first). The large majority of Indians are not very progressive, only a very vocal minority (at least on the internet) is.
As for the topic at hand, you know perfectly well this is not about blocking a few sites. This is about a challenge to the power of the government to dictate reality to it's peoples. If they wanted 2 or 3 sites they'd ask for just that. But they're asking for a process that will essentially guarantee them any blocks they want in the future.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:4, Insightful)
If wishing something happened made it so, then why didn't Obama change the US into a heaven on earth ? Frankly, I hope you're right. I just think you're wrong.
In India > 800 million people live on 2$ per day. Are you seriously suggesting they are progressive thinkers ? I'm not saying it's their doing or their fault or anything like that. I just find it really hard to believe it is any other way.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:2)
Relax. That was a joke. And as a joke you should not take it seriously or assume someone has deep misconceptions about your people and culture. Its just the internet. Heck I laugh along every time someone throws me a "BR? GIBE MONI PLIS HUEHUE" comment.
Now, I should be more concerned about this simple DNS block. That might just be the beginning because when the government realize it is not effective they may improve the blocks and that can result as a great firewall for your country. I just don't agree with your "hey it won't affect me because I know how the internet works" attitude.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:2)
Yeah, I know: Just like we keep out Americans by strategically placing spinach around, since they abhor healthy food.
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do **NOT** forget the Indian diaspora ! (Score:2)
UN (Score:3)
No. Just no.
Re:UN (Score:2)
As warranted as your sarcasm is, it's still better than placing something so important in the hands of the anti-freedom bureaucrats at the UN.
Re:UN (Score:2)
UN is not going to have control over the Internet, anyway, because it lacks enforcement powers. Suppose the "anti-freedom bureaucrats" decide to block something; now what? The root servers are still hosted in certain specific countries, and said countries can always tell the UN to fuck off on that particular matter.
By the way, this is also why UN as a whole is not a "world government" in any meaningful sense. UNSC is another story, but it doesn't deal with such mundane stuff.
Re:UN (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the UN works very hard and with some measure of success to grant itself enforcement powers in countries that matter and that typically, it suits the local government to enforce their resolutions. Using the US as an example, congress may be reluctant if enough people make a fuss about it, but would the executive even give them a say in it? It's been (sadly) demonstrated that executive orders bypass congress nowadays.
Re:UN (Score:2)
The point of moving it to the UN is that its harder for them to *try* to corrupt it to any one nations exclusive advantage (they have to fight each other).
And it doesnt matter which overload is trying to oppress the internet, they wont succeed in the long run because the internet empowers individuals more than their masters, all they can do is escalate the arms race.
Its just a matter of time until something better for the majority replaces DNS.
Re:UN (Score:2)
Re:UN (Score:2)
Your country is free to do their own thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Setup a different set of root servers. Start out by mirroring the ICANN root file to your root authority, and then passing that to your servers. Then maybe talk to ICANN about splitting authority over the root zone so your country/countries run the root for that part, ICANN for the rest.
Oh what's that? It is expensive and you'd rather just tell the US how to run it shit? Screw you then.
See the thing is right now the Internet doesn't have any global law over it, not even the US. It is all just a set of conventions. ICANN has the power because almost all DNS servers trust the root-servers.net roots, and they trust ICANN. However not only can you set up other roots, people have. Look at OpenNIC for one example. So while the US does have nominal de facto control, they have no de jure control and people can start ignoring them and building their own infrastructure any time they wish. It can even be an individual. You can run your very own root service, if you wish.
However, you start making it international law, then it is the kind of thing countries have to enforce, the sort of thing you can't just go your own way on. The people with guns will be saying what goes on.
So how about no, let's not have the UN in on it. Particularly since for all its faults, the US doesn't want to censor speech like China, Iran, and so on do and they all sit on the UN.
Re:Your country is free to do their own thing (Score:2)
What part of the Internet do people really feel like the US "controls"? IETF is somewhat US-oriented, so I guess you could argue that IPv4 and IPv6 (and all other Internet standards) are "controlled" by the US. But, there is still nothing (other than money and control over their ISPs) stopping a country from writing their own protocol stack, then having government backed companies produce the network equipment and software to work with it. Finally, they would be free from the tyranny of the United States!
So far, the worst thing the US Government has done is seize/alter DNS records. Nothing an entry in the ole' hosts file (or alternate DNS service) doesn't fix. Yes, this is dumb, and as a US citizen I feel this is a ridiculous offense against free speech. However, comparatively speaking, what the US is doing is petty. The US version of free speech violation involves whatever the wealthiest corporations tell the government needs to be censored (i.e. RIAA/MPAA sponsored policies to "stop piracy"). Generally speaking, the government doesn't care what I say about it, so long as it isn't extreme enough to get myself labeled as a terrorist. The China/Iran/etc. version of free speech violation involves you going to jail if you say anything negative about the government. India has been struggling to find effective ways to censor their Internet for some time now, and what they are asking for goes far beyond meddling with DNS. Allow the UN to "develop internet policies" and "oversee all internet standards bodies and policy organizations"? Gee, that sounds like a great idea. What could possibly go wrong? Let me get in line to allow the UN to set policies to what I can access and not access on the Internet. While they are at it, they should stop the IETF from publishing RFCs such as 1149 [ietf.org] - I'm concerned that could assist with overthrowing a militant regime somewhere.
That sounds way better than what we have today! </sarchasm>
My personal opinion is that India keeps failing to find effective ways to perform the censorship they want to, and this is their way of soliciting external help with "solving" the problem. Maybe someone should put them in touch with China and tell them to leave everyone else out of this. Once the UN solves all of the other world problems, like war, crime, hunger, disease, etc. then they can move on to more minor tasks like this one...
Re:UN (Score:2)
Control what? Control the actual fiber, cables and microwave links? Well the USA doesn't control those. Those are owned mostly by private companies generally subject to the laws and regulations of most every nation in the world. However the physical infrastructure isn't exactly The Internet. The internet is merely a bunch of networks passing traffic back and forth. The US DoC was smart enough to see that for this sort of thing to work there needs to be some point of coordination to allocate addresses and manage DNS servers. Guess what, you don't have to abide by the United States of America's rules on this. Feel free to use any DNS servers you want. Use any network addresses you desire. Just don't be shocked if nobody wants to talk to you once you start talking in -- what is effectively -- your own made up language. Why do you think you have the right to insist that everyone conforms to your preference of coordinating body?
And yes you absolutely can turn that argument exactly around and I completely agree with it. 100%. The United States has no right to insist that other counties follow the our rules. But so what. We put our network out there and it turns out that most everyone wanted to be on it. When whatever agency or country you have an affection for is as culturally and economically significant as the Unites States of America, then they'll be able to call the dance.
Not The World Governments! (Score:2)
How it goes... (Score:5, Interesting)
India: "Hey, has anybody thought we should try controlling the 'net more?"
Korea: "Nah, that's a terrible idea. Maybe a law keeping ISPs from blocking stuff they don't like would be better."
Germany: "Yeah, that sounds good."
Sweden: "Add a clause telling the movie and music companies to stop suing people for more money than some of *us* have, and you'll get my vote!"
Eritrea: "Hear, hear!"
And then the law gets passed and nobody messed with the internet again and we all live happily ever after, the end. ...
Hey, if *they* get to talk about *their* crazy future scenarios, I get to talk about mine.
Re:How it goes... (Score:2)
As crazy as it is, it's infinitely more believable than US' Congress saying that (and the Supreme Court has said the FCC can't regulate the Internet unless Congress DOES pass the law you describe).
Who is the worst steward? (Score:3)
For now things are in the hand of ICANN (that is, USA), and it is illegitimate enough that it cannot make crazy moves, otherwise some states will start creating their alternative DNS roots. I wonder if a UN based organization would be more capable of wrecking the Internet without partionning it.
Note that whatever the governing body is, we have no chance of having democratic oversight no it, anyway.
It very much would (Score:3)
Most nations take International Treaties as something that has the highest force of law. In the US, that is specified in the Constitution and many other nations have similar provisions. So, if the nations get together and hammer out a treaty that says "Such and such UN body shall have ultimate authority over the 'net and we agree to do what they say," that is pretty binding. Other countries can go after them to enforce it.
So right now if you make an anti-Iran website in the US, there is little Iran can do about it. They can whine but the US says "Sorry, that is free speech here," and that is that. However if there is UN authority and the UN group says "That's mean it has to go down," the US will need to listen to them and make you take it down.
Likewise right now you have companies like Slysoft selling programs (AnyDVD HD) that the US media cartels and by extension the US government really don't like, but there's not much they can do about it because it is legal in Antigua and Barbuda which is where Slysoft is. However with international treaties covering it, the US could ask the UN body to take Slysoft offline.
Remember that right now all the US can do in terms of shit outside their borders is take away domain names registered with US registrars. So if you register a .com domain, they can nab that because Verisign is the authority for .com and they are a US company. They can't take away your IP or server, unless the country they are in cooperates, they can't even take away domain names run by other countries unless that country cooperates, or they were willing to go scorched earth and have ICANN remove the whole TLD from the roots, and even then some of the roots might decide not to listen to ICANN (they aren't all US based).
Sure it is more power than any other country, but it is pretty piddly shit overall. Someone could host something in China on a .cn name that the US didn't like and there is fuck all they could do so long as China was happy with it.
However a UN body that had authority by international treaty? They could do, well, whatever the treaty gave them authority to do.
Internet routes around standard damage (Score:2)
Internet routes around standard damage originating somewhere in Asia. News at 11
No it doesn't! (Score:2)
which effectively means the control of the internet passes on to World Governments directly.
No it doesn't. Only if the US gives up control of assigned IP addresses and DNS tlds that it controls. Already each country controls their own two letter tld.
I propose that we don't (Score:2)
Who needs the UN in everybody's shorts?
Re:I propose that we don't (Score:2)
Who needs the UN in everybody's shorts?
1) Who the heck wears Internet-connected shorts?
2) Do the shorts run Java?
3) Where can I buy a pair?
4) The UN? In my shorts? It's more likely than you think!
Reclassification of RFC 1984 to historic (Score:3)
Just WTF do they think they are going to when all Internet standards bodies unanimously refuse to be overseen? Shut down their mailing lists and brand all members terrorists?
Re:Reclassification of RFC 1984 to historic (Score:2)
Just WTF do they think they are going to when all Internet standards bodies unanimously refuse to be overseen? Shut down their mailing lists and brand all members terrorists?
Were you under the common yet critically dangerous assumption that any person in political office had the slightest chance of maintaining ownership of his own soul?
As long as the tv shows keep on bellowing forth from the screen and the coca-cola (original recipe, natch) keeps on flowing like sweet, syrupy soma, the proletariat will be satisfied. Dear IETF members: May the odds be ever in your favor!
Let's be realistic ... (Score:2)
The Internet is an international medium that needs international agreements in order to operate. Just because there are international agreements in place doesn't mean that it will be reduced to the lowest common denominator either. Radio and telephone systems are prime examples of this. (The governance isn't perfect, but it works.)
Yes, and it will run on ISO OSI instead of TCP/IP (Score:2)
They couldn't even get a basis protocol for an Internet running. How will the same folks be able to manage an Internet?
First agenda item, due 2037: "Defining the method and process for the selection of committee oversight executive members, for the selection of sub-committee oversight members, for the definition of a framework of work the work defining co-interdependent entities of interested parties for the formations governing orthogonal autonomous regulating non-spatial, non temporal beings."
Not valid on Tuesdays.
Public: "Um, so how does this new UN-governed Internet work . . . ?"
UN: "We are currently implementing plans to size the effort."
If the UN tries to regulate the Internet, it will be either,
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:3, Funny)
By the same token, Mercedes-Benz invented the car, why should you have one?
Are you fucking high?! America invented the car!
In fact you're lucky we even let you exist, America invented people!
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:4, Funny)
Is a European lecturing us on fiscal discipline? Let the flame wars begin!
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:2)
OMG, FlashBlock just had a hernia :)
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:4, Funny)
What kind of a lunatic creates a web page consisting of 94 individual flash animations??? It's like Hamster Dance!!!
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:2)
It wasn't called Mercedes back then, but Daimler and Benz did produce the first internal combustion "horseless carriages"
However the first self propelled vehicle was made by a Frenchman, Cugenot (or something like that) a century earlier - it was steam powered and had 3 wheels. (I think it was a bit top heavy with its large boiler, and overturned and killed the driver, thus making the first fatal automobile accident.
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:2)
Germany is trotting along quite nicely. Much better then US in fact, and would've been fucked on currency value if not for PIIGS dragging euro down.
Why do you think they keep funding the entire mess? Without it their exports would be much lower due to potential new DM exploding in value.
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:2)
The REAL invention that made cars attractive was efficient production of gasoline, and that was due to an American, William Meriam Burton who invented thermal cracking.
... and that was due to a Russian Vladimir Shukhov who invented thermal cracking and patented it in the Russian empire (No. 12926, November 27, 1891). The American input was to tweak the technique and patent it in the United States. FTFY.
In this day and age that is called 'theft' but in reality there are precious few, if any ideas, that are not built on those of others whether in the US or elsewhere.
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours (Score:2)
No, the Wright brothers didn't invent the airplane, what they did was to build the first one that could carry a person. Innovation based on earlier designs.
Re:Fuck Off We Invented It, Its Ours --Nope, Brits (Score:2)
Um, no. Actually is was Brittan,( and I am an American thank you) They invented the first Steam powered cars and buses in the 1840's-50's. Benz made the first vehicle power by gas in 1886. And what many of my lesser educated countrymen get confused on is the Ford Modle A. It was not the first car but the fist MASS produced car. Ford invented the assembly line. Not the car.
Ford really didn't invent the assembly line, but rather was the first person to apply that to automotive assembly. Ford got the idea for the assembly line from the Chicago meat packing plants which had cows come in one side and cuts of meat coming out the other with semi-skilled laborers running the plant in between where they would only have to perform a limited number of actions that were each easily taught rather than having skilled butchers being required to completely dress and butcher a cow. Ford's reasoning was that putting together an automobile was even easier to do than dressing a cow, which turned out in practice to be the case as well.
Re:A simple three letter word comes to mind (Score:2)
No! Do or do not! There IS no try!